‘memtest86’ is the file/kernel image from /boot when memtest86 is installed; just make sure you remove a .bin file extension from it if it has one as this will break things.

‘memdisk’ is a binary image taken out of a syslinux download (see bios/memdisk) in the .tar.gz file.

However, the problem with the above is that it’s REALLY slow to load ISO images over TFTP….. Rummaging around on the internet indicates this is a problem with TFTP and the only way to fix this is to use something like iPXE – which allows for much faster booting / loading of ISO images – as it can work over HTTP / iSCSI and other protocols.

The only pain in doing this is that iPXE needs an initial configuration – so when it loads, it knows what to do without you having to type things in on the command line. This requires building iPXE from source. Thankfully this is straight forward and takes about 10 seconds.

Download iPXE ( git clone git://git.ipxe.org/ipxe.git )

Create an initial configuration for iPXE – in our case we want to get an IP address via ‘dhcp’ and then display a ‘boot menu’ (located at http://172.30.33.67/netboot/boot.php)…. – see palepurple.ipxe (below).

Now when you ‘boot off LAN’, your normal onboard PXE boot thing will talk to your DHCP server, be told it needs to look at the TFTP server on 172.30.33.250 and then load the file ‘undionly.kpxe‘. undionly.kpxe loads, gets itself an IP address via DHCP (as we told it to in palepurple.ipxe above) and then load whatever is specified at http://172.30.33.67/netboot/boot.php (see below).

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We’ve been using Pale Purple for over 5 years now. There’s a lot of benefits to be gained from building a close relationship with a small but very stable and capable team.
Paul HiscoeTransparencyData.co.uk